The local fisher community in Keni village near Ankola in Uttara Kannada have resolved to demand a Kannada version of the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for a proposed commercial port in the region, during a public hearing on August 22.

While the English version of the draft report, prepared for the proposed all-weather deep-water port by JSW Infrastructure, is around 600 pages, the Kannada version is only a 48-page executive summary, which the fishers allege prevents the local community from understanding critical details.  

Access to information

“We are sending a legal letter, and during the public hearing, our primary demand would be to have a full EIA report in Kannada,” said Sreeja Chakroborthy, environmental lawyer and founder of Living Environment Advocacy Foundation. She noted that failure to provide a full draft in Kannada is a violation of the Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Act, 2022.

“Most of the local people can understand only Kannada. There is a strong demand that they don’t want the public hearing unless the 600-page EIA report is translated and given in English,” she said. 

According to her, although the EIA draft should have been circulated in seven village panchayats, only two have received it.

‘Hasty job’

According to experts, not only has the report been done hastily, but a comparison of the English and Kannada versions reveals discrepancies between the two. 

“They have done a three-month study from December 2024 to February 2025. Normally, to understand the situation in an area, one year is the mandatory time to prepare an EIA,” said Soumya Dutta, trustee at Movement for Advancing Understanding of Sustainability and Mutuality. Mr. Dutta was in the region to assess the situation at the invitation of local communities. 

He noted that although the company claims that a large part of the port would be on reclaimed land, it would still result in the displacement of the traditional fishers’ fishing grounds. 

According to him, the environmental impact of the port proposed on the western side of the Western Ghats region will be huge, resulting in the blocking of drainage channels and flooding. 

Multiple discrepancies

V.N. Nayak, a marine biologist from Ankola, has written to the Deputy Commissioner of Uttara Kannada district pointing out several “discrepancies” between the two versions of the report and highlighting the crucial gaps in them.  

He noted that while the Kannada version initially mentioned that the project is a private port, it later termed it as ‘public-private participation.’ In the English version, there is no mention of public participation, he pointed out.  

While the draft EIA report mentions the New Mangalore Port Authority (NMPA) as the only major port along the coastline of Karnataka, Nayak points out that there are three ports in Karnataka, with two ports — Karwar and Belekeri — in the Uttara Kannada region itself.

“Expansion of Karwar port is already under way, and the cargo mentioned to be imported and exported from the proposed port is the same as in Karwar. In Honnavar’s Kasarkod-tonka village, a port is proposed, and two more are in line. Would we still need this port when all these upcoming ports become operational?” he questioned. 

Locals protest

In February, hundreds of fishers jumped into the Arabian Sea to mark their protest against the proposed port. Most of the protesters were women. 

The ₹6,515-crore project will occupy 457 acres for a reclaimed foreshore facility. Further, land would be acquired for road, rail and pipeline corridors and storage facilities. Almost 7,500 traditional fishers from nearly 2,000 families live within a 5km radius of the project site, and they fear that the port would detrimentally affect their livelihoods.